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INTERVIEW:

Inmate And J.F. Ingram Horticulture Student Timothy Brown

Inmates from several prisons take a math class at J.F. Ingram State Technical College. The campus becomes a medium-security facility when students arrive. We agreed not to show full faces. Photo by Dan Carsen.

DEATSVILLE, Ala. -- Alabama's J.F. Ingram State may be the nation's only state-run two-year
college exclusively for inmates. Its mission is to reduce recidivism by offering "three
legs of the stool": academics, life skills (getting along with coworkers and family, managing stress, getting to work on time, and more), and vocational training. WBHM's Dan Carsen recently visited Ingram's Deatsville campus, where he met Timothy
Brown, a 53-year-old convicted robber and burglar serving a life sentence but hoping
for parole. Brown had walked over from the Frank Lee minimum-security
facility next door. He'd been passing around organic cantaloupe and filling
in for his horticulture teacher. Dan starts the interview by asking Brown if doing the latter makes him
nervous: